


i'm just feeling low, feeling low

by wtfoctagon



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/F, Gen, M/M, id say unrequited pining but it's obviously mutual for both couples they just don't know, makoann and akiryu adjacent makoto and akira platonic fluff, makoto is a soft sad muffin and akira is the quiet sassy dad friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 10:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtfoctagon/pseuds/wtfoctagon
Summary: “You know,” she murmurs, “we should really stop doing this. Moping on the roof together. It’s not very productive.”“Probably,” he admits. “So, same time next week?”She laughs and smacks him on the shoulder, rolling her eyes again. It’s not really a joke. But still, what's left to do if they can't even make fun of themselves?





	i'm just feeling low, feeling low

**Author's Note:**

> a quick sketch i wrote to help me try and get over someone
> 
> title from 'Sleepover' by Hayley Kiyoko; ive made like five playlists for makoann and they're 60% Hayley Kiyoko and Carly Rae Jepsen and I 100% blame makoann tumblr for it

“This is a restricted area, you know.”

Makoto’s heart jumps to her throat on a collision course with half-scrambled apologies and excuses before she realizes it’s not a teacher standing at the door to the roof stairwell. Akira leans against the doorframe with a small smile, and it takes her a second to realize he’s making fun of that one time she came up here for the express purpose of chasing them off. 

“Stop it,” she reprimands with a half-hearted laugh as she settles back into her half-perch on the edge of one of the abandoned desks. Without saying anything else, she looks back out at the view and thinks that this is one of her favourite things about Akira; she doesn’t have to say anything. He comes to lean on the desk next to her, hands pocketed as always and looking out at the same sliver of scenery they can see through the forest of apartment buildings: just hints of green and sunshine of a park in the distance. 

He doesn’t ask what she’s thinking about; he doesn’t have to. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees him shift and turn to her with a small tilt of the head, so she crosses her ankles and leans back on her palms with a small sigh of a smile. 

“Autumn’s always represented as the season of dying and decay,” she starts, tapping a finger on the worn surface of the desk. “The precursor before the stillness of winter. I just think it’s funny. I’ve always felt like it’s when everything comes back to life for a while. Summer makes every feel so…” she frowns. “Suffocating. Heavy and stifling. I’ve always loved the first few days of Autumn because because it’s easier to move and everything is colourful again.”

Akira smiles in that incredibly slight, missable way that he does. “Green’s a colour.”

Makoto shakes her head. “Technically, I guess. But anything can feel like monotony in the absence of everything else.”

He hums, looking away. It’s quiet save for the chatter of students in the courtyard below them and the faint echo of cars in the distance. She looks over at him this time, taking in his ridiculously lanky figure and his decidedly not-wriggling bag. 

“Where’s Morgana?”

He shrugs. She briefly thinks about being concerned before she lets it go. There’s always been something extremely calming about Akira’s nonchalance: she always gets this sense that if he’s not too worried about it, she doesn’t have to be, either. 

It’s freeing. And maybe it’s childish of her to enjoy not having to think for herself so much all the time, but she doesn’t care as much as she should. It’s just comforting; and really, that isn’t so much to ask for sometimes, is it?

“You told Ann you were going home early today.”

Makoto feels her shoulders sag. 

“What did she say to you?”

He gives a one-shouldered shrug and a disaffected raise of his brows. 

“She’s worried about you.”

Makoto laughs. “Of course she is. I should have come up with a better excuse.”

He smiles wryly. “Sometimes, that’s just how it is.” 

There’s another beat of silence while they wait for a small gust of wind to pass. 

“What was it today?” he asks. 

Makoto picks at her cuticles for a second before clasping her hands together. “You were there for it. At lunch?” she clarifies, glancing at him. “Ryuji said something, and she leaned over to make fun of him to me, I think.”

“You think?”

“I don’t actually recall what she said,” Makoto sighs. “I thought she was just going to… prop her arm on the back of my chair, but she actually…” She feels her lungs get stiff even trying to explain it. “She put her arm around my waist. I sort of blanked out after that.”

Makoto remembers how she was suddenly enveloped in the smell of Ann’s hair, the quiet puffs of laughter on her ear as she whispered some joke.

He puts his hand on her shoulder, and it would feel patronizing coming from anyone else. She just looks up to give him a tense smile. 

“And you?” she asks. He squeezes her shoulder once before adjusting his glasses and pushing his hand back into his pocket. 

“Nothing as romantic, sadly,” he says, snorting lightly when his joke lands and Makoto rolls her eyes. He pauses for a moment before continuing. “He made some stupid comment about how gross the ‘crowd’ in Shinjuku is.”

Makoto cringes. “I’m sorry,” she offers, even though it tastes just as ineffectual and useless on the tip of her tongue as it sounds out loud. “Is that why Ann was mad at him?”

He lets out a full laugh, which is rare, and only happens when he’s not actually amused in any way. “She tossed him out of our homeroom by one ear when he didn’t take it back. At least your girl doesn’t hate people like us.”

“She’s not my girl!” She feels her hackles raise with embarrassment but shakes her head. “He’ll learn eventually. He’s too soft-hearted not to. He just doesn’t know any better right now.”

“Yeah,” Akira sighs. “I know.”

“I’m still sorry, though,” Makoto adds. “I know that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

He shrugs. For a moment, she’s jealous; he makes it look so effortless to just literally shrug things off. She wishes she had that kind of mental fortitude.

Well. That’s why he’s the leader and she’s not, she supposes.

“Sometimes it helps,” he starts, “when I think about all the reasons he’s not the kind of person I want to end up with.” 

“I can’t imagine that’s easy.”

“It is. He’s not exactly a dreamboat.” He says it so plainly and Makoto snorts. “He’s crude and immature and he still thinks it’s okay to talk about girls the way that he does. And he has absolutely no idea how to dress himself.”

Makoto’s wheezing into her hand at this point, and he looks over with a grin, as if he was trying to get her to laugh and he’s so pleased with himself for succeeding. Which is probably true, she thinks, because he’s always so quietly affectionate like that, looking out for all of them in his own sardonic way.

He waits until she’s more or less done. “Your turn.”

Makoto lets out one last cough before she clears her throat and really tries to think about it. 

“She’s…” Makoto scrunches her brows. “Not very sophisticated. She has the attention span of a hamster and and the appetite of a toddler let loose on her fifth birthday. She can be so temperamental and impulsive sometimes and it’s ridiculously frustrating.”

“That’s the spirit,” Akira says, and Makoto just laughs again. 

“You know,” she murmurs, “we should really stop doing this. Moping on the roof together. It’s not very productive.”

“Probably,” he admits. “So, same time next week?”

She laughs and smacks him on the shoulder, rolling her eyes again. It’s not  _ really _ a joke. But still, what's left to do if they can't even make fun of themselves?

She feels the futility of it all again when they meet up with everyone for their weekly Mementos run. All of the things she said— all of the flaws she pointed out to make herself feel a little less infatuated— suddenly don’t matter at all, not when Ann’s sitting next to her, twirling her hair and bouncing her leg and pushing into Makoto’s side to show her something funny on her phone—

Takamaki Ann isn’t the person that Makoto wants to be in love with. But that means nothing in the face of the overwhelming simplicity of the fact that she’s the person that Makoto  _ is _ in love with. 

Akira catches her eye from across the table and gives her a sympathetic smile, Ryuji’s arm slung around his shoulders. He doesn’t have to say anything, and neither does she; they’ll sit on the roof together again and vent, just to forget all their complaints and start the whole process over again as soon as they see their dumb, dense, ridiculous blondes because they're just stupid teenagers too. It’s cyclical and futile and they know they should be looking for a way out. But they know that they won’t. 

Sometimes, that’s just how it is.

**Author's Note:**

> pls talk makoann (and loving futaba) to me at wtfoctagon.tumblr.com or @wtfoctagon on twitter im starving for content


End file.
